Nicodemus National Historic Site

19May15

My guess is that you, faithful reader (stolen from Stephen King), haven’t heard of Nicodemus National Historic Site. I’m also assuming you don’t have a clue where it is located.

For the record, Nicodemus National Historic Site is located in its namesake town in the middle of nowhere Kansas.

And in my never ending quest to visit all of the National Park Service sites I traveled to Nicodemus last weekend to spend an hour or so in the historic Black community settled by formerly enslaved African Americans from Kentucky. Nicodemus is the oldest and is the only remaining Black settlement west of the Mississippi River.

Quite surprisingly I wasn’t the only visitor last Saturday in Nicodemus. There was a couple from Georgia also at the Visitor Center when I arrived. After they departed I had an enlightening conversation with a very enthusiastic park ranger about this national historic site.

I believe the ranger was in semi-shock that he had more than one visitor on the same day. When I asked him about Nicodemus, he immediately started talking about the lack of tourists.

“Year in and year out, we’re in the bottom ten of the least visited parks,” he said. “Typically the only people that come are individuals that are lost or national park junkies that want their book stamped.”

Count me in with those that are national park junkies, although I don’t maintain a National Park Passport. Nicodemus is the closest park I had yet to visit – about seven hours from my home in Ames – and if I was serious about seeing every unit, then I couldn’t ignore Nicodemus.

There’s not much to see in Nicodemus. Besides the couple from Georgia and the park ranger, I only saw one other person – a man mowing the church’s lawn. And like I said, besides a national historic site, Nicodemus is still a community, although one I wouldn’t say is thriving. For the record, less than 30 people still live in the town and it shows.

There are five historic buildings in Nicodemus and all are an easy walk from the Visitor Center, which is your tour starting point as well as one of the historic buildings.

The Visitor Center is the only building on the walking tour that you can actually go inside. The building doubles as the Township Hall and was built in 1939 during the WPA program. The ranger told me that when the annual town reunion is held the Park Service clears out and the town uses the building for meals, dances and social functions that weekend.

The rest of the year, Township Hall serves as the Visitor Center where you can view an informative display on the history of Nicodemus and a short film featuring current and former town residents.

The other historic buildings on the tour range from the abandoned St. Francis Hotel and one-room schoolhouse to two churches – the First Baptist Church and the A.M.E. Church. It appears that the A.M.E. Church is undergoing renovations on the inside of the building, while the First Baptist Church has built an addition that is still being used.

The one-room schoolhouse was my favorite stop on the walking tour. Although you can’t go inside, the grounds include old playground equipment that may still be used during Nicodemus reunions.

It’s doubtful many of you will ever have venture to Nicodemus. But if you happen to be driving down U.S. 24 in northwestern Kansas, take a few minutes and drop in. You’ll make the day of at least one park ranger I know.

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